Overview
- A Hennepin County jury found Wright guilty of first-degree premeditated murder on Wednesday, and he is set to receive a mandatory life sentence without parole at Friday's hearing.
- Prosecutors said he shot Samuels near her Jeep on the 1400 block of Russell Avenue North, where officers found about 15 spent casings and later matched surveillance images to Wright.
- Court records show Samuels sought an order for protection three weeks earlier alleging he attacked her and held a gun to her head, and minutes before the shooting she posted that he had threatened her family and damaged her car.
- Samuels’ family and Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty criticized Minneapolis police for not enforcing the protection order, and Chief Brian O’Hara ordered a case review and departmentwide retraining on domestic-violence response by the end of 2025.
- Wright was arrested the next day and, while on federal probation that barred him from having a gun, reportedly told authorities he would not fight the case.